


Wait

by stickster (all_these_ghosts)



Category: Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-06
Updated: 2006-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_these_ghosts/pseuds/stickster
Summary: He'd given in long ago to the knowledge that he would always be waiting for her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this story is eleven years old! but the other day I found it referenced on a list of k/j fics, and realized it no longer existed on the internet. so here it is, in case anyone finds themselves looking for it.

At first, he had come to Abregado-Rae once a month, at the most, and each time only for a weekend. Just to make sure she was doing all right: that work was going well, that she didn't need any money, that she hadn't been making any inquiries about flights back to the Corporate Sector.

Really, that was all.

Though every time he came, he spent the night in her bed: holding her, and that was all, and only because she always said (in the cool, damp mornings, in the pre-dawn when he habitually woke) that she only slept well when she was in his arms.

That was the only reason.

But when his visits became more frequent, he didn't have to look closely to see the humor in Mirynda's eyes, humor that told him, "I know, I've always known," humor that worried him. Surely Jaina looked different enough now: she'd been out of the HoloNet's view for a dozen years, presumed dead for five of those.

So perhaps Mirynda didn't know--didn't know exactly who her boarder was, at least.

There were other things, he admitted to himself, that Mirynda might know. Like the fact that he never took out a hotel room, like the fact that he hadn't missed a single opportunity to visit in the eight months Jaina had been on the planet.

And frankly, if Mirynda had gotten that far, she wouldn't have to go much further at all to determine the small brunette's identity.

He knew all of these things, but he ignored them. He had to--as had happened too often in his life, there was a severe dearth of alternatives.

Namely: If he acknowledged the possibility that Mirynda knew who Jaina was, she would have to be uprooted again. Find a new job, a new home, an employer who asked fewer questions. Worse, he would have to stop visiting her, because he was still well-known enough to arouse curious glances in most civilized places.

These were not compromises he was willing to make. Not after all this time, not after all of the compromises that had left them in such an unenviable position.

He wished sometimes that he could just spirit her away to some place small and quiet and backwards. They would live in a house on the shore of a clean lake, grow their own food, laugh and kiss and maybe have their own dark-haired children, want for nothing.

He wished this, but only sometimes. Most times he recognized it for what it was: an idle daydream, a future made impossible not only by circumstance, but by the very fact of who they were. They were not people who could live quietly, and he was not a man who could afford idle daydreams, or daydreams of any sort at all.

There could be no easy life, not for him, but he would die with a lifetime's worth of stolen moments. Usually, that felt like enough.

Her smile was as broad and warm as the afternoon sunlight when she came out to greet him: today was a good day, he realized with some relief. Jaina's bad days were painful, all nightmares and tears and insults that crawled under his skin. Three months ago he had visited on a bad day: so bad she'd hardly recognized him. After that visit, Mirynda said she hadn't expected to see him again.

But he couldn't stay away. She could tear lesions in his skin with her fingernails and he'd still come back, begging for her to pour salt in his wounds, just for this smile.

"Hey," she said, "What took you so long?"

He pulled her into a tight hug. "It doesn't matter. How are you feeling?"

She snaked a hand up to press her palm against his chest, as though she took comfort in the feel of his heart beating. "I'm all right. Mirynda says the business is doing well--there's more customers in the summer." She shrugged. "It's been quiet. A month is a long time."

With a brush of his lips against the top of her head, he simply said, "Yes, it is."

A month was a long time. A year, a decade, a lifetime: longer still. But he'd given in long ago to the knowledge that he would always be waiting for her.  


* * *

"Sometimes I feel like the war never really ended," she said, lying curled up against him in her narrow bed. Outside her small window, the snow fell heavy and wet and carried with it a draft that left the apartment almost cold. Almost, he thought, except that she was in his arms.

He stroked her hair back from where it had fallen soft and dark across his bare chest. The chestnut strands slipped too easily through his fingers, as though he were clinging to shadows. "That's probably because you never stopped fighting."

"Stopped now."

"Not forever, Jaina. You just need time."

"You've been telling me that since you found me," she snapped, and a long hesitation seemed to form itself after she said it. It was as though the air itself understood the sheer volume of what was left unsaid, as though time expanded to make room for all of it.

What she didn't say: That he'd found her lying half-clothed in a dimly lit room that smelled like incense and sex, found her and recognized her when she hardly knew her own name.

He pulled her closer, and she sighed and absently began to trace the solid muscles of his abdomen.

When she spoke her voice was quiet but absolutely firm. She had, he mused, learned some things from her mother, however hard she'd tried not to. "I'm a Jedi and a pilot, I'm a _fighter_ , and there are still wars to be fought. You're still fighting."

"You fought too hard. It's why you're here." _You fought so hard that you shattered._

"You can't keep me safe forever."

_I can try._

"I'm fine now," she insisted. "My arm's been healed for weeks now. And the nightmares have stopped."

He knew those nightmares. Nightmares about insects two meters tall, or humanoids with scarred faces. Nightmares about her long-dead brother, nightmares about the father whose funeral she hadn't attended. He found it hard to believe that her nightmares had gone away when his were so vivid--her funeral five years ago permanently etched into his memory, the funeral his dreams attended every night he didn't spend with her.

"Just a little while longer, Jaina," he said, keeping his voice controlled, because he couldn't let her win. He knew she'd never wanted someone to protect her, knew that she _resented_ it, even, but he couldn't help thinking it was his responsibility.

Her fingers continued their slow trek across the planes of his chest. "I'm not going to wait here forever." Her breaths, warm puffs of air against his skin. "I needed time, and I've taken it."

"Is it that bad here?"

"Can't live quietly," she said. "This isn't me, Kyp, and you know it. I can't disappear and forget everything that matters. I don't want to. I've never wanted to. And you wouldn't like me if I had."

He sighed and closed his eyes, wishing he could close his mind as easily--close it to all of the reasons why this small respite couldn't last. "It's late, Jaina. Let's talk about this in the morning."

"You can't keep putting it off."

"I'm not," he said, pulling her hand to him and pressing a soft kiss to her palm. "Just until tomorrow."

She could wait until tomorrow.  


* * *

She hadn't been there the next morning.

He had leaned against the headboard waiting until early afternoon. Jaina had taken his ship, the ship he'd named after her, _Goddess_. It seemed right, somehow. As he'd wandered the spaceport looking for a ride he passed by Mirynda, who knew, and who had probably always known.

What Kyp knew: That Jaina was right, of course, and that she would find her own way, as she inevitably did. And if she fell down again, he would find her. And if she didn't--and he knew, somehow, that she wouldn't--he would be waiting.

It had been six months since he'd seen her, and while everything had returned to normal--he mediated minor disputes, attended dinners where he saw Jaina in that red dress in every dark-haired woman, and tried to avoid Leia's dark, hard eyes--he had a sense of anticipation he hadn't felt in years.

He would always be waiting, and so when she knocked on his door, it was only a small surprise. Only a surprise of timing, but that was enough. As soon as he saw her he wrapped her in a hug that lifted her from the ground.

"Oh, Jaina," he breathed against her hair. "I missed you."

He could feel her smile. "And here I thought you were the one taking care of me."

"Like you'd let that happen," he snorted.

And when she punched him in the shoulder and then looked up at him and kissed him, he didn't allow surprise to rule him for more than a moment. His body reacted to hers instantly, his hands bringing her closer to him, his lips kissing hers twice for every one she bestowed on him. And when she pulled back breathlessly, face flushed and eyes smiling, he kissed her again, because even if he hadn't known it, this was why he'd been waiting.  


* * *

Sometimes late at night, when the room was dark enough that the lines around his eyes faded, she would run her fingertips along the sharp curve of his jaw and whisper words from a silent language against his ear.

And he would kiss her fingertips, knuckles, wrists; her lips. He would kiss her until they both forgot the weeks, sometimes months of waiting; until they forgot that even now, they could only be together in secret.

He would find it strange that in the thirty years he had known and loved Jaina Solo, they had had at the most stolen moments, and often even less.

Thirty years with nothing to show for it but battle scars. Sometimes, especially lately, he would ask her why they kept fighting. He was getting old, so was she, and nothing they did was changing anything.

Her answer would always be the same: "Someone has to fight, Kyp, and no one else will. We have to fight so that _someone_ in the galaxy can get what they want."

"Why not us?"

"Does it matter?"

That answer answered nothing and asked less, because both of them knew it didn't matter. Neither of them would stop fighting. Of course there were moments--long nights when the sacrifices they'd made rose up and demanded attention, and Jaina would wake up remembering the children she never had, or Kyp would fall asleep unable to think of anything other than all the years he'd wasted waiting for her, regret for that lost time weighing heavy on his chest. But those moments were few and far between, because both of them knew that they couldn't have lived any other way.

"We're here now," she would say, pressing her body against his so that every part of them touched, so that every time she inhaled it pulled their hearts closer together. "And we're together. It's enough."

And he would kiss her and ask her why it took her so long, and she would just smile.

"It doesn't matter. I knew you would wait."


End file.
